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gog  1yr ago (text post)   1883 thread views

Advice for disagreeable people

I am disagreeable IRL. Like, everyone I get to know well eventually starts avoiding me. I can find lots of advice for how to deal with other disagreeable people, but not much for people who are themselves disagreeable. Surely some of you lot are the same. Have any of you overcome this? If so, how?

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Money will buy you plenty of status. My own status shot way up when I put my money where my mouth was and made mid-five figures in the stock market while my friends and I were all working minimum wage jobs.

I can't imagine ..how one could 'contradict' one's "betters". About what ? Like, you risk getting fired if you tell your boss he's doing things wrong, but who else is a 'better' ?

All sorts of people can think themselves your "betters". Doctors. Psychologists. Lawyers. A civil servant with the modicum of power to make your life difficult. Any old rich man or woman who thinks they deserve reverence from lower SES people or any younger person. Anyone who thinks highly of themselves and/or has some power imbalance they want to use.

Social status isn't always objective. A lot of it is just about who can play the social game better. Plenty of dumb(er) people dunk on their smarter peers who also happen to be less socially savvy and thus gain status. Office politics is the same.

I agree with Nybbler that being disagreeable per se isn't really the issue here. Lots of people in high-powered positions are. It's being punished for it, which is associated with low status/low power.

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